AUD/JPY kisses 92.00 on better-than-anticipated Australian Retail Sales

• AUD/JPY has touched an intraday high of 92.00 as upbeat Australian Retail Sales fuel hawkish RBA bets.
• Monthly Australian Retail Sales have landed at 1.9%, higher than the consensus of 1.5%.
• BoJ Ueda favors the continuation of the expansionary policy to accelerate wages and domestic demand.

The AUD/JPY has kissed the immediate resistance of 92.00 as the Australian Bureau of Statistics has reported higher-than-expected monthly Retail Sales (Jan) data. The economic data has landed at 1.9%, higher than the consensus of 1.5%. In December, Retail Sales contracted by 3.9%.

In times, when the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and other policymakers are building a roadmap to soften inflationary pressures, upbeat retail demand data is going to add to the current troubles. Australian inflation has not shown a peak yet despite the RBA has already pushed its Official Cash Rate (OCR) to 3.35%. RBA’s policy tightening spell is not expected to halt anywhere amid an absence of evidence conveying a deceleration in the overall demand.

The cross will display a power-pack action on Wednesday as the Australian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and monthly Consumer Price Index (CPI) will release.

As per the projections, a growth of 0.7% is seen in the Q4 of 2022, against 0.6% released in the third quarter. On an annualized basis, the Australian GDP is expected to deliver a growth of 2.7% vs. the former release of 5.9%.

Apart from the Australian GDP data, monthly CPI (Jan) is expected to soften to 7.9% from the former release of 8.4%. A decline in the monthly inflationary pressures will provide relief to RBA Governor Philip Lowe and other policymakers, which are worried about Australia’s sticky inflation.

On the Tokyo front, a surprise dovish tone adopted by Bank of Japan (BoJ) Governor Nominee Kazuo Ueda is impacting the Japanese Yen. It is appropriate from the viewpoint of BoJ Ueda to continue the expansionary policy to accelerate wages and domestic demand as multi-decade-high Japanese inflation is an outcome of international forces.

In early Asia, annual Japan’s Retail Trade (Jan) jumped to 6.3% vs. the consensus of 4.0% and the prior release of 3.8%. However, the Japanese Yen failed to capitalize on the same.